[[22]]
THE ARAB conquest
of Sind and southwestern Punjab was completed by 714, and during the
following
three centuries there was no further extension of Muslim dominion. The
second phase of Muslim expansion, beginning with the establishment of a
Turkish Muslim dynasty in Ghazni, followed the traditional northwestern
routes for the invasion of India.

In 642 the Arabs
had defeated
the Sassanid ruler Yezdegerd and become masters of Iran. After this,
operating
from Fars by way of Kirman, they set about conquering the eastern
provinces
of the Iranian empire. Under Qutaiba ibn Muslim they conquered
Transoxiana
as far as Khwarizm and Samarqand (711-712), and within a century of the
death of the founder of Islam the Arabs were masters of Khurasan,
Balkh,
and Mawara-un Nahr (Transoxiana). It was the Arab occupation of
Transoxiana
that paved the way for the Muslim conquest of India, for it established
a link between the Turkish homeland and Islam. From this time the Turks
were to play an important role in the Muslim world, and were the main
force
behmd the conquest of the subcontinent.
Invasions from Ghazni

The first inroad
into the
heart of the area which is now Afghanistan was made by Yaqub ibn Lais,
the Saffarid, who captured Kabul in 870 and founded Ghazni at about the
same time. Kabul was, however, lost by his successor to Hindu rulers
known
as the Hindu Shahis, whose capital was at Waihind (Ohind), near modern
Peshawar, and whose rule extended to Kabul in the west and the Bias
River
in the east.

In the meanlime
the Samanids
(874-999) had established themselves [[23]] at Bukhara and
gradually
brought the greater part of the territory to the east of Baghdad under
their sway. Persian in origin, they favored the Persian language.
Rudaki,
the Chaucer of Persian poetry, flourished at the Samanid court, and
Persian
replaced Arabic as the official language.

Under the
Samanids Turkish
slaves gained political and military importance. One of these,
Alptigin,
rebelled against his Samanid masters and established himself at Ghazni
in 962. In 977, Subuktigin, a Turkish slave upon whom Alptigin had
bestowed
the hand of his daughter, ascended the throne of Ghazni and proceeded
to
expand his kingdom by annexing adjacent areas in Khurasan, Seistan, and
Lamghan. Alarmed at the rising power of the new Turkish principality,
Jaipal,
Shahi raja of Waihind, took the offensive and advanced toward
Subuktigin's
capital. The two armies met between Lamghan (modem Jalalabad) and
Ghazni.
Jaipal was defeated, and was forced to agree to pay a large indemnity
to
the Turkish ruler. He defaulted and tried to avenge his loss, but he
was
again decisively defeated, and Subuktigin followed up his success by
forcing
Jaipal to cede the territory between Lamghan and Peshawar .

Later Muslim
historians often
represent Subuktigin as a champion of the faith, whose "chief
occupation
was the propagation of Islam with fire and sword among the idolators of
India," but, in fact, he never crossed the Indus, and the only two
expeditions
in which he took the initiative "were undertaken rather as measures of
reprisal and for the purpose of securing his dominion than with any
intention
of propagating his faith."/1/
Subuktigin, however, paved the way for the more active efforts of his
son
Mahmud by occupying the key city of Peshawar and building roads leading
to the Indian frontiers along which his son marched during his numerous
expeditions.

Even more
important was the
development of Ghazni as a base of operations against India. It reached
its zenith in the succeeding reign when it became a center of political
power, organized administration, and literary culture, second in
importance
only to Baghdad in Muslim Asia. Even under Subuktigin it surpassed
Bukhara
in importance, [[24]] and began to attract a large number of
Turks
who were to form the spearhead of the attack against the Indian
subcontinent.

Subuktigin died
in 997, and
after a brief struggle his son, known to history as Mahmud of Ghazni,
succeeded
him. Brilliant and ambitious, Mahmud at once turned his attention to
India.
He had taken part in all of his father's campaigns against Jaipal, and
knew the weakness of the Indian armies as well as the riches of the
kings
and temples. The series of invasions he launched against the
sub-continent
were to carry his armies farther than any previous Muslim ruler had
penetrated.
His first important battle was fought near Peshawar on November 28,
1001,
and ended with the defeat and capture of his father's old opponent,
Raja
Jaipal. Jaipal obtained his release by paying ransom, but his repeated
defeats had lost him the confidence of his people, and he named his son
Anandpal as his successor. Following the Rajput custom, he immolated
himself
on the flames of a funeral pyre.

Three years later
Mahmud
made another expedition to India to punish the raja of Bhatiya (the
modern
Bhera), a principality that had been friendly to Subuktigin but had
failed
to provide help against Jaipal. The raja was defeated, but on his
return
Mahmud found himself in a difficult position. He lost most of his
baggage
in crossing the rivers of western Punjab, and was attacked by Abul Fath
Daud, the Ismaili ruler of Multan. In 1005 Mahmud returned to punish
Daud,
but his passage was obstructed by Anandpal. Daud shut himself up in the
fort at Multan and obtained pardon on payment of ransom and the promise
to abjure Ismaili doctrines. Anandpal was defeated, and Mahmud
appointed
Sukhpal (a grandson of Jaipal who had accepted Islam and was now known
as Nawasa Shah) as governor of Waihind, and returned to Ghazni.

This first
attempt to establish
a center of Muslim authority east of the Indus through a scion of the
old
ruling family did not succeed. Nawasa Shah apostasized, started
expelling
Muslim officers, and proposed to rule either as an independent king or
as the vassal of his uncle Anandpal. Mahmud returned to deal with the
situation
in 1008 and found Anandpal fully prepared. He had obtained help [[25]]
from the Hindu rajas of Ujjain, Gwalior, Kalinjar, Kanauj, Delhi, and
Ajmer.
It appears that by now Hindu India was alive to its peril. Not only did
the rulers from northern and central India send their contingents, but,
according to Firishta, even the masses were highly enthusiastic, and
the
Hindu women sold their ornaments and sent their savings to help the
army.
The battle was fought at a place between Peshawar and Waihind. Mahmud
took
special precautions, for his army was breaking down under the charge of
the warlike Khokhars when a fortunate accident decided the day in his
favor.
Anandpal's elephant took fright and fled with his royal rider. The
Rajput
army, believing the raja's flight to be intentional, broke up and
dispersed,
hotly pursued by the Muslims, thus converting what looked like a Hindu
victory into a defeat.

The defeat of the
great Hindu
confederacy was a turning point in Mahmud's career. So far his
campaigns
had been confined to the neighborhood of the Indus. The breakup of the
Hindu army emboldened him, and now he marched against the more distant
Nagarkot (Kangra), where there was no resistance. Nagarkot contained an
ancient temple which, like other Hindu temples of the period, was a
great
repository of wealth donated by rich votaries. Mahmud returned laden
with
booty, and for the rest of his life the ancient Hindu religious centers
with their treasure hoards accumulated over centuries were to exercise
a powerful fascination over him. His future expeditions went even
farther
afield. Tarain (1010), Thanesar (1014), the distant Kanauj (1018), and
Kalinjar (1022) were scenes of Mahmud's exploits, in which he was
uniformly
successful. He did not try to establish his rule at any of these
places,
but he left a governor at Lahore in 1020, which now became incorporated
into the Ghaznavid empire.

The most dramatic
of Mahmud's
campaigns was against Somnath, the wealthy religious center on the
shores
of the Indian Ocean. The dash to this distant goal, through an unknown
and unfriendly area, across the deserts of Rajputana and marshes of
Cutch,
was a remarkable feat of courage, planning, resourcefulness, and
tenacity
of purpose. In spite of the hardships which Mahmud and his army had [[26]]
to suffer on the return journey, the expedition was completely
successful
in its object. Mahmud returned laden with riches of an extent until
then
unheard of in Ghazni.

Mahmud set out on
the expedition
to Somnath in October, 1024, and did not return to his capital until
the
spring of 1026. Except for a brief punitive expedition in the autumn of
the same year against the Jats of Sind who had harassed him during his
return from Somnath, Mahmud did not return to India. Henceforth affairs
in Central Asia occupied him until his death in 1030.

A brave and
resourceful general
during thirty years of ceaseless warfare, Mahmud never suffered defeat.
He was a cultured monarch, and by his munificence attracted great poets
and scholars to his court, making Ghazni the rival of Baghdad in the
splendor
of edifices and the number of men of culture and learning. He lacked
the
constructive genius of Muhammad Ghuri, and in spite of having overrun a
great part of northern India, established Muslim dominion only up to
Lahore,
but he made the work of the later conquerors easier.
India at the Time of the Invasions: Al-Biruni's
Account.

For our knowledge
of India
in this period we are indebted to one of the most remarkable of Islamic
writers, Abu Raihan al-Biruni. His stay in what is now West Pakistan
could
not have been long, but his accounts of Indian customs and manners, as
well as his observations on the Islamic conquest, are among the most
penetrating
that we have. He was born in about 973 in Khwarizm (modern Khiva) and
soon
distinguished
himself in astronomy, mathematics, logic, and history. Some time before
1017 Mahmud was able to persuade him to come to Ghazni, but evidence of
close contact between the sultan and al-Biruni is lacking. He was
evidently
in greater favor with the next ruler, Masud, to whom he dedicated his
work,
Qanun-i-Masudi. His other works include the
Chronology of Ancient
Nations, an introduction to astrology, a treatise on materia
medica,
astronomical tables, a summary of Ptolemy's Almagest, and
several
translations from Greek and Sanskrit. He must have written some books
in
[[27]] Sanskrit, as at one place he writes of "being
occupied in
composing for the Hindus a translation of the books of Euclid and of
the
Almagest, and dictating to them a treatise on the construction of the
astrolabe,
being simply guided herein by the desire of spreading science."/2/
However the work which is of special interest is his famous Kitab-ul-Hind,
a masterly survey of the religion, sciences, and social customs of the
Hindus, which was completed shortly after Mahmud's death. As a study of
an alien civilization his book represents the peak of Muslim
scholarship,
and remains unsurpassed as a masterpiece of erudite learning,
penetrating
observation, and unbiased appraisal of Hindu culture. In the preface to
his book al-Biruni discussed the principles which should guide a
scholar
in treating of societies and religious systems other than his own. He
criticized
the tendency to misrepresent other societies or to depend on
"second-hand
information which one has copied from the others, a farrago of
materials
never sifted by the sieve of critical examination." The principle which
he adopted was to adhere to the accounts of the Hindus as given in
their
own authentic works. Of his own work he said: "This book is not a
polemical
one. I shall not produce the arguments of our antagonists in order to
refute
such of them as I believe to be in the wrong. My book is nothing but a
simple historic record of facts. I shall place before the reader the
theories
of the Hindus exactly as they are, and I shall mention in connection
with
them similar theories of the Greeks in order to show the relationship
existing
between them."/3/

Al-Biruni
considered the
Hindus to be excellent philosophers, good mathematicians, and sound
astrologers.
He fully appreciated their mental achievements, and when he came across
anything noble in their sciences or practical life he did not fail to
praise
it. Writing about the great tanks, or reservoirs, at holy places he
remarked,
"In this they have attained a very high degree of art, so that our
people
when they see them wonder at them and are unable to describe them, much
less to construct anything like them."/4/

[[28]]
But while al-Biruni
had a sympathetic understanding of the profound achievements of Hindu
society,
there were Indian attitudes and customs that seemed to him to indicate
fundamental weaknesses. The chief of this is summed up in his
often-quoted
analysis of the tone and temper of contemporary Hindu society: "We can
only say that folly is an illness for which there is no medicine, and
the
Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like
theirs,
no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.
They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are
by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they
take
the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste
among
their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner."/5/

There can be
little doubt
that these attitudes help to explain the successes of Mahmud and later
invaders. An open, dynamic society, which had adopted ideas and
techniques
from many quarters, had an enormous advantage when it faced a culture
that
had ceased to be receptive to alien influences.
Mahmud's Successors

After Mahmud's
death in 1030,
his son Masud succeeded in establishing his claim to the throne. Masud
soon turned his attention to India and replaced the governor of Lahore
with Ahmad Niyaltigin, his father's treasurer. The instructions issued
to the officers at Lahore at the time of Ahmad's administrative
reorganization
are interesting. "They were not to undertake, without special
permission,
expeditions beyond the limits of the Punjab, but were to accompany
Ahmad
on any expedition which he might undertake; they were not to drink,
play
polo, or mix in social intercourse with the Hindu officers at Lahore;
and
they were to refrain from wounding the susceptibilities of these
officers
and their troops by inopportune displays of religious bigotry."/6/

[[29]]
Ahmad Niyaltigin
soon got into difficulties, however, with Abul Hasan, who had been sent
by Masud to collect the revenue and inquire into the affairs of the
earlier
administration. It seems that when Ahmad returned in 1034 from a very
successful
raid against Benares he had failed to remit the spoils of victory to
Ghazni.
This gave Hasan the opportunity to send reports to Masud that Ahmad,
utilizing
the plunder of Benares to raise a powerful army, was on the point of
revolt.
Masud decided upon punitive action against the governor, and the
command
of this responsible and hazardous expedition was entrusted to Tilak,
one
of his Hindu generals. "When Tilak arrived at Lahore, he took several
Musulmans
prisoners, who were the friends of Ahmad, and ordered their right hands
to be cut off; ...the men who were with Ahmad were so terrified at this
punishment and display of power, that they sued for mercy and deserted
him."/7/ Tilak pursued
Ahmad
with a large body of men, chiefly Hindu, and after the erstwhile
governor
was killed in an encounter, his head was taken to Ghazni.

Masud came to
India in 1037
and, in fulfillment of a vow taken during an illness, attacked and
captured
the fortress of Hansi, hitherto considered impregnable by the Hindus.
During
his absence the Saljuq Turks invaded the western and northern
territories
of the Ghaznavid empire and occupied Nishapur. Masud returned to deal
with
them, but his Hindu contingent failed conspicuously against the
Saljuqs,
and Masud fled toward Lahore. When the royal party reached Marigal pass
between Rawalpindi and Attock, Turkish and Hindu guards mutinied, and
the
sultan's brother was placed on the throne. However Masud's son, Maudud,
defeated his uncle and in 1042 became sultan.

During Maudud's
reign, Mahipal,
the raja of Delhi, made a determined attempt to oust the Ghaznavids
from
the Punjab. He recaptured Hansi, Thanesar, and Kangra and besieged
Lahore,
but was unable to take the town. In 1048 Maudud appointed two of his
sons
to the government of Lahore and Peshawar, and sent Bu Ali Hasan, the
kotwal
of Ghazni, to deal with the Hindu resurgence. These [[30]] measures
were successful, but Maudud died shortly thereafter in December, 1049.

The next
important ruler
was Sultan Ibrahim, whose long and peaceful reign of forty years
(1059-1099)
constitutes the golden period of Ghaznavid Punjab. Ibrahim had ensured
the stability of his northern and western frontiers by entering into a
treaty with the Saljuqs, and his son Masud II married the daughter of
Sultan
Malik Shah. Secure at home, Ibrahim could pay full attention to India,
and in 1079 he crossed the southern border of the Punjab, capturing
Ajodhan,
now known as Pakpatan. His military commander at Lahore, the brilliant
Abul Najm Zarir Shaybani, was constantly on the offensive, and carried
out successful raids against Benares, Thanesar, and Kanauj. The main
achievement
of Ibrahim's reign, however, was Lahore's rise as a great cultural
center
under the viceroyalty of Shirzad, his grandson. Ibrahim was succeeded
by
his son Masud III, who ruled peacefully for sixteen years (1099-1115).
Shirzad succeeded him, but he was deposed in the following year, and
then
after a brief rule by Arsalan, Bahram came to the throne, which he held
for thirty-four troubled years (1118-1152).

The trouble came
mainly from
the chiefs of Ghur, a hilly area between Herat and Kabul that had been
conquered by the Ghaznavids in the time of Mahmud, but that had
remained
virtually independent. Out of the quarrels was to come the destruction
of the Ghazni dynasty and its replacement by one based on Ghur. During
Bahram's reign Qutb-ud-din Muhammad, a Ghuri chief, took the title of malik-ul-jabal
(the
king of the mountains). Bahram gave him his daughter in marriage, but
later,
suspecting treachery, had his son-in-law poisoned. To avenge his death,
his brother Saif-ud-din collected a large body of men at Firuz Kuh, the
capital of Ghur, and set out for Ghazni. He defeated Bahram and forced
him to flee to India, but in 1149 Bahram returned suddenly to Ghazni,
surprised
Saif-ud-din, and reoccupied his capital. Saif-ud-din, who had
surrendered
on the promise that his life would be spared, was put to death under
abhorrent
circumstances. This aroused the ire of another brother, Ala-ud-din
Husain,
known to history as Jahan Soz (the world-burner), who took a terrible
vengeance.
Capturing Ghazni in 1151, he reduced its splendid [[31]]
buildings
to ashes and desecrated the graves of its kings. The same process of
destruction
was repeated in the provinces.

Bahram reoccupied
what remained
of Ghazni when Ala-ud-din Husain was defeated and temporarily
imprisoned
by the Saljuq Turks. This relief was only temporary, however, for after
Bahram's death in 1152 his successor was driven out of Ghazni by the
Ghuzz
tribe of Turkmans. All that was left to the Ghaznavids was their Indian
province of Lahore, where they maintained their rule after the loss of
Ghazni.

Meanwhile the
power of the
Ghuri chieftains revived, and in 1173 two nephews of Ala-ud-din Husain
succeeded in taking the city from the Turkmans. The older of the two,
Ghiyas-ud-din,
became sultan of the Ghuri kingdom, which he governed from Firuz Kuh,
in
the area now known as Hazarajat. The younger brother, Muiz-ud-din
Muhammad,
was stationed at Ghazni as the deputy of the sultan, and from here he
undertook
the conquest of the subcontinent. His first move was against Lahore,
where
the last of the Ghaznavids, Khusrau Malik, was finally defeated in
1186,
and the area was added to the Ghuri kingdom. The subsequent career of
Muiz-ud-din,
or, as he is known in Indian history, Muhammad Ghuri, will be traced in
the following chapter, but since his triumphs mark the end of one
period
of Muslim-Hindu contact and begin another, it will be convenient at
this
point to summarize the general results of the impact of Islam after the
time Mahmud of Ghazni made his first raids at the beginning of the
eleventh
century.
Results of the Ghaznavid Invasions

The example set
by Mahmud
of Ghazni of raiding India and sacking its wealth, particularly that
stored
in the great temples, was repeated by his successors whenever the
opportunity
arose. The effect of this on the country can easily be imagined, and
al-Biruni's
description of the result of Mahmud's raids can scarcely be doubted.
"Mahmud,"
he wrote, "utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed
wonderful exploits by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust
scattered
in all directions, and like a tale of old in the [[32]] mouth
of
the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most
inveterate
aversion towards all Muslims. This is the reason, too, why Hindu
sciences
have retired far away from those parts of the country conquered by us,
and have fled to places which our hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir,
Benares,
and other places."/8/

Over against this
dark picture,
however, must be set evidence that suggests that even during the
Ghaznavid
period there were peaceful contacts between Hindus and Muslims. The
caravan
routes between Kurasan and India were reopened, for example, as soon as
mIlitary operations were over. Furthermore, according to Ibn-ul-Athir,
there had been Muslims in the Benares area "since the days of Mahmud
bin
Subuktigin who continued faithful to the law of Islam, and constant in
prayer and good works."/9/
There is a persistent local tradition in certain old centers in the
heart
of Uttar Pradesh that Muslim families had settled there long before the
conquest of the area by Muhammad Ghuri. In the city of Benares there
are
Muslim mohallas, which, it is said, are anterior in date to the
conquest
of Benares by the Muslims, and similar traditions are current about
Maner
in Bihar./10/

The only area of
which anything
like a recorded history for the Hindu period is available is Kashmir,
and
from there we get information regarding the peaceful presence of the
Muslims
among the Hindus. "Muslim traders and soldiers of fortune began to
enter
Kashmir from an early date. Kalhana records that Lalitaditya's son and
successor Vajraditya sold many men to the mlecchas, and introduced
practices
which befitted the mlecchas." Later Harsa (d.1101 ) employed Turkish
soldiers
and, under Muslim influence, adopted elaborate fashions in dress and
ornaments.
During the brief reign (1120-1121) of Bhikshachara, Muslim soldiers
were
again employed. From the accounts of Marco Polo, it appears that by the
end of the thirteenth century there was a colony of Muslims in Kashmir,
for he says that the people of the valley do not kill animals, but that
if they want to eat meat, "they get the Saracens who dwell among them,
to play the butcher." These "Saracens" must have been [[33]]
either
emigrants from Turkistan or Hindus converted to Islam by the pietist
missionaries
from India and Central Asia./11/

The position of
Hindu generals,
soldiers, and scholars at the Ghaznavid court is also significant. Even
Mahmud, the iconoclast, had a contingent of Hindu officers and
soldiers.
He richly rewarded at least one Sanskrit poet, and had Hindu pandits at
his court. He also issued coins with Sanskrit inscriptions. The Hindu
position
seems to have improved greatly in the days of his successor, Masud.
Only
fifty days after the death of Mahmud, his son despatched Sewand Rai, a
Hindu chief, with a large body of Hindu cavalry in pursuit of the
nobles
who had espoused the cause of his brother. Sewand Rai died in the
ensuing
battle, but his selection for this important assignment indicates his
position
of trust and eminence. Five years later, Tilak, another Hindu general,
acquired a dominant position. The son of a barber, he became a
confidant
of Khwaja Ahmed Hasan Maimandi, the influential wazir of Sultan Mahmud.
The khwaja made Tilak his secretary and interpreter, and in 1033, when
news was received from Lahore of the rebellion of Ahmad Niyaltigin, it
was Tilak who was sent to deal with the situation. The extreme measures
taken by the Hindu general against the Muslim partisans of Ahmad show
his
confidence and sense of security.

The importance of
the Hindus
in Masud's army may be judged by the fact that at the battle of Kirman
they formed half of the cavalry, there being two thousand Hindus, one
thousand
Turks, and one thousand Kurds and Arabs. They fared very badly in this
battle, and later six of their officers committed suicide in accordance
with Rajput practice. The Hindu contingent was later equally
ineffective
at Merv. These repeated disasters must have led to the reduction of the
Hindu element in the Ghazni army, but contemporary evidence suggests
that
the Hindu position under the Ghaznavids was very much better than it
was
to be in the early days of the Delhi Sultanate.
The Cultural Legacy

Of more lasting
importance
than the vicissitudes of the house of Mahmud is the cultural heritage
of
Ghazni, particularly in relation [[34]] to that part of the
Ghaznavid
empire which now constitutes West Pakistan. The court chroniclers of
Ghazni
have not paid the subject much attention, but there are ample
indications
in contemporary literature that the Muslim government at Lahore was
well
organized and vigorous and that the city had become a great cultural
center.
Usually a distinguished royal prince was appointed the naib (viceroy or
deputy) of the Punjab, and maintained an elaborate court. The long and
peaceful reigns of lbrahim and his successor Masud III, provided the
opportunity
for the cultural growth of Lahore. The city owed much to Abu Nasr
Farsi,
the distinguished secretary of Shirzad who was viceroy for many years.
He established a khanqah (hospice) at Lahore which attracted
scholars
from far and near. "In large numbers seekers after knowledge from all
parts
of India, and the territories of Kashgar, Transoxiana, Iraq, Bukhara,
Samarqand,
Khurasan, Ghazni, Herat, etc., benefited by the same. Consequently a
new
settlement grew up in the neighborhood of Lahore."/12/

The first Persian
poet of
the area mentioned in literary histories was Masud Razi (d.1077). Razi
recited a poem in Masud's court in which he appealed to the sultan to
deal
with the growing menace of the Saljuqs. "The ants have become snakes,"
he said, and "may become dragons, if neglected." The sultan, resenting
this overt reference to his weakness, exiled the poet to the Punjab./13/
Next year he relented and put Razi in charge of affairs at Jhelum, but
did not permit his return to Ghazni. With the exception of a few verses
his work has perished, but the diwan of his distinguished son,
Abul
Farj Runi, who spent most of his time at Lahore, has survived and has
been
published in Iran.

The most notable
poet of
the period, however, was Masud Sa'ad Salman, whose father held a high
office
under the viceroy. Masud was born in Lahore about 1048. A great
favorite
of Prince Saif-ud-daula Mahmud, the viceroy of Hindustan, he composed
many
qasidas
eulogizing the victories of his patron. When the prince fell out of
favor
with the sultan the poet lost his jagir, and was later
imprisoned
[[35]]
for ten years because of his suspected share in Saif-ud-daula's
treasonable
proceedings. Released shortly before Sultan Ibrahim's death in 1099, he
was given responsible posts, including the governorship of Jullundur.
When
his patron Abu Nasr Farsi incurred royal displeasure, Masud was again
imprisoned.
He was released in about 1107, became the royal librarian, and after
arranging
his voluminous diwan, died in 1121 or 1122. Masud wrote in Persian,
Arabic,
and old Hindi, but no specimen of his verses in the last two languages
is extant. His Persian works have led an Iranian critic to include him
among the ten greatest poets of the Persian language./14/
His most moving poems were composed in captivity and express a
nostalgic
longing for Lahore. In one he wrote:

Thou knowest that I lie in grievous bonds, O
Lord!
Thou knowest that I am weak and feeble, O Lord!
My spirit goes out in longing for Lahore, O Lord!
O Lord, how I crave for it, O Lord!

And in another he remembers how,

The Id festal time is come, and I am far from the
face of that
charming sweetheart;
How can I live without the sight of that houri of Paradise?
Who shall say to me, "O friend, a happy Id to thee!"
When my sweetheart is at Lahore and I in Nishapur?
Why do I long for the city of Lahore and my beloved?
Well, was there a man who did not miss his sweetheart and his native
land?

Among the prose writers of
this
period the most famous was the saint Ali Hujwiri, popularly known as
Data
Ganj Bakhsh of Lahore, who died in 1071. He wrote both in prose and
verse,
but his diwan was lost during his lifetime, and the few verses
that
are quoted in his prose works are not of a high order. His fame as an
author
rests on Kashf-al-Mahjub (The Unveiling of the Hidden), the
oldest
extant work on Sufism in Persian./15/
The value of Kashf-al-Mahjub lies not only in the authentic
information
which it gives about the earlier and contemporary mystic orders, but
also
in the fact that it is a systematic [[36]] exposition of
mysticism.
It has long been regarded as a standard textbook by Sufis.
The Central Asian Heritage

Arab rule in the
Sind had
brought Islam to India, and had set a pattern for dealing with the
conquered
peoples as well as facilitating fruitful contact between Hindu and
Islamic
civilizations; the Ghaznavid occupation of Lahore had even more
far-reaching
cultural results. Persian, which was adopted as the court language and
was the vehicle of literary and cultural expression during the
Ghaznavid
period, continued to hold this position throughout Muslim rule. The
branch
of Persian which remained current in Muslim India was the eastern
branch
in vogue in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and not the pure Persian of
Isfahan
and Shiraz.

Partly because
the linguistic
affinity, and partly because the waves of the immigrants who
established
Muslim culture in India, came through Ghazni and Bukhara, the entire
cultural
pattern of Muslim India was dominated by the Central Asian tradition.
This
continued until the days of the Mughals who, although themselves Turks
from Central Asia, established closer contacts with Iran and Arabia.
Even
then, out of several strands which provided the warp and woof of Muslim
civilization in India, the most dominant was the influence of Central
Asia.
After the establishment of Muslim Delhi, the ad- ministrative system
was
modeled on that of Ghazni. Muslim political institutions, military and
administrative organization, ethics, and jurisprudence, in fact the
entire
pattern of Muslim life, bears the imprint of Ghazni and Bukhara. It was
the Hidaya of a Central Asian lawyer which became the standard
legal
textbook in Muslim India. The same tradition gained preeminence in
other
spheres. This tradition became firmly entrenched when a large number of
Muslim scholars, writers, and darvishes from Central Asia took refuge
in
Muslim India to escape Mongol atrocities.